First blockchain-based EV grid integration standard released | The Paper Source University

Honda and GM lead introduction of the Mobility Open Blockchain Initiative (MOBI) standard for grid integration of electric vehicles.

The standard from MOBI’s Electric Vehicle Grid Integration (EVGI) Working Group is aimed to support the increasing uptake of EVs by incorporating blockchain technology into a decentralised charging system.

The first technical design specification covers the system designs and data schemas required for three core use case areas: Vehicle to Grid Integration (V2G), Tokenized Carbon Credits (TCC), and Peer to Peer (P2P) applications.

The standard supports interoperability by not prescribing any particular application or underlying distributed ledger technology. Rather it ensures that all of the pertinent data attributes and functionalities of each use case are available for organisations to utilise in creating their own applications.

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“Electric vehicles, chargers, and electricity producers can have a secure identity, communicate with a standard messaging format, and automatically record transactions such as charging, generation, and exchange on a distributed ledger,” said Tram Vo, MOBI’s COO and founder.

MOBI is a non-profit industry alliance focussed on developing proof-of-concepts and standards in blockchain, distributed ledgers and related technologies for the mobility sector.

The EVGI Working Group is chaired by Honda and GM. Pacific Gas & Electric is the utility representative with other members including Accenture, CPChain, IBM, the IOTA Foundation, Politecnico di Torino and R3.

Blockchain benefits for emobility

Numerous pilots are under way for managed charging of EVs and utilising them as flexibility resources for the grid.

MOBI’s EVGI business case document comments that blockchain technology offers a variety of benefits for emobility, the grid and carbon offset markets, both in reduction of costs and in the enablement of new revenue opportunities.

Though vehicle-to-grid coordination may seem quite different than peer-to-peer electricity trading, the processes that underlie those applications are similar, the document states. They have the same needs for core network services such as digital identity, permissioning and data exchange.

“At its core, blockchain provides a trust layer, which complements the mutual business interests between utilities, charging service providers, property owners and EV drivers. Additionally, blockchain enables these parties to create a shared ledger of data, a single source of truth of paramount information to facilitate interactions, a secure and trusted marketplace where transactions can be facilitated without intermediaries through efficient and automatic smart contracts.”

Other MOBI working groups are addressing vehicle identity, usage based insurance, connected mobility, finance and securitisation and the supply chain.